The day high school seniors rule the sports world

Depending on how you follow college football, today is either one of your favorite days of the year, or one that makes you wish you could just skip ahead to Thursday.It's national signing day.ESPN and other outlets will breathlessly report the college choices of 17- and 18-year-old kids who hope to one day play in the NFL.Some recruits will actually hold press conferences, have numerous hats representing various universities, then unveil their selections as if they are Bob Barker and the rabid fans of said universities are the poor fools in the audience hoping to get selected for this episode of The Price Is Right.Maybe you can tell I fall into the “let's just skip ahead to Thursday” camp.I understand college football is big business.I realize many of these kids will help their future schools make millions, while “only” getting scholarship money in return (that's if you believe all of these programs are on the up and up).

I'd prefer to wait until Rivals.com's No. 1 recruit (in case you're wondering, this year's list is topped by a defensive end headed to Mississippi) actually plays a down in college.If you disagree, you're far from alone.There's a reason there are more websites devoted to college football and basketball recruiting than there are breakdowns of the best schools for wanna-be journalists.It's the same reason the University of Arizona spent $378 million to expand the north end zone area at Arizona Stadium and football accounts for more than 70 percent of all revenue generated by sports at Ohio State.The people demand it.The rest of us can make an annual pledge to stay away from ESPN, CBS and Yahoo! on the first Wednesday in February.

Super odds

While we're on the subject of huge business, the 2014 Super Bowl odds were released before Joe Flacco's agent had the chance to say he deserves to be the NFL's highest-paid quarterback.Sportsbook.com and pregame.com have the Patriots as the favorites to win the Lombardi Trophy next season, and both sites have the current runners-up, the 49ers, as the No. 2 choice.Sportsbook has the Browns and Buccaneers tied for 26th in its 2014 Super Bowl odds. Only the Titans, Cardinals, Bills, Raiders and Jaguars have worse odds.

Pregame ranked the Browns 27th at 66-1 to win the Super Bowl. The Ravens are tied with the Texans for fifth at 14-1. The Steelers are tied with the Falcons and Saints for eighth at 18-1, and the Bengals are 15th at 35-1.The consensus top four teams for 2013 are the Patriots, 49ers, Broncos and Packers.As you read this, Ozzie Newsome is enlisting a soon-to-be retired Ray Lewis to give a passionate preseason speech about a lack of respect for the champs.

Social Saturday

Lake Erie College in Painesville is taking a cue from Akron in engaging its fans and giving away cool stuff.Only in the Storm's case, they are building an entire day around it.Lake Erie's Social Media Saturday will begin with a wrestling quad meet that starts at 10 a.m. and last through the women's basketball team's 7 p.m. game against Walsh University.All events will be broadcasted online, and sports information and marketing students will tweet, blog and chat throughout the day.There will be contests and prizes, including (we're saving the best for last here) a $50 iTunes gift card.You can follow me on Twitter for sports information and analysis. Pretty much everything but recruiting rankings.

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